Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the proportion of personal independence payment cases which are appealed at a tribunal.

Only a small proportion, 7%, of all PIP decisions have been appealed.

As part of on-going review and improvement analysis of PIP, we are continuing to make efforts to ensure that all decisions, whether made initially or at Mandatory Reconsideration, are the best informed decisions. For example, the department is running a series of trials which looks at the end to end PIP decision making process with a particular focus on MR and explores the different ways we can improve the quality of our decision making.

However, it is important that claimants can appeal their award decision if they are unhappy with it. Moreover, a request for an appeal does not mean that the decisions taken initially and as part of Mandatory Reconsideration were not right. Claimants often provide new, relevant evidence at the tribunal stage.